A Poem a Day, Week 41, Oct 8 to Oct 14, 2022
Welcome to Sifting the Rubble's weekly blog and podcast of my poem-a-day challenge for 2022. I am your host, and poet, Emily Gibson. The poems for the 41st week of the year, October 8 to 14, all began in a poetry class over the previous week, taught by teacher/poet/author Irene Cooper. Imagine my delight when there were seven prompts!
I would be remis if I didn't explain for those new to this podcast that these are 1 or 2 day poems, which have not gone through the grist of revision. That comes later, something I truly look forward to doing. For now, they are new, not quite steady or solid, but each has something to say, so I share them, uncensored. It is part of my challenge.
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And now, for this week's poems!
Poem #281, Don’t Weep the Waste of Life
by Emily Gibson, Oct 8, 2022
Shed no tears for the sludge
of rotted pears in an orchard
abandoned by war.
Spend no sorrow on a thousand
frogs unhatched, turned to mold
in strings of jelly capsules.
Suffer no regret for a surname,
cut short by your barren womb,
and the absence of cakes.
Life revels in sloppy abundance.
It flings the seeds of fruits
and frogs and families
with abandon, like Johnny
with his sewage of apples.
Such a thoughtless fevered
fertility leads to famine for all,
unless fate thins crops
to sidestep maturity randomly.
Poem #282, Voices, in Love
by Emily Gibson, Oct 9, 2022
Who is she in love?
A painter
who interprets
colors as sounds
when words move across her shadow.
Who are you in love?
A feather
that feels
every ripple and ridge
of a blank page before you write.
Who am I in love?
A lamp
that shows
what needs to heal
in shades of black and white rainbows.
Who are we in love?
Echoes
which reverberate
our sonar songs until
we see our unspoken, in unison.
Poem #283, Goddess of Capitalism
by Emily Gibson, Oct 10, 2022
Poem #284, Field of Vision (a Cubist Quatrain Poem)
by Emily Gibson, Oct 11, 2022
A silver stapler rests on an open book.
A purple toilet-paper rose fades.
A screaming goat raises giggles.
A lifeless speaker is silent.
Purple staplers scream, lifeless.
Open books fade into giggles.
Risen goats speak silent silver.
Rested paper toilets will rise.
Lifeless goats speak into purple books.
Giggles fade into lifeless screams.
Toilets open, silent as silver roses.
A stapler rests on raised paper.
A rose, lifeless, opens to paper.
A goat, silent, turns staplers into giggles.
A book, purple, fades to silver.
A speaker, screaming, rests on a raised toilet.
About "Field of Vision": The prompt for this poem began with everyone in attendance contributing an object they could see in the room they were Zooming in from. Our task was to use these objects to inform a poem. I decided to write a Cubist Quatrain, because I thoroughly enjoy the structure and word play they require. The items we started with were: Stapler, Screaming Goat, Books, Purple rose made of toilet paper, and Speaker. Looking back at this poem, I notice that most of the stanzas have a pattern or structure that is repeated across the four lines.
Poem #285, Patterns in Becoming
by Emily Gibson, Oct 12, 2022
Inspired by watching this video of a salamander becoming: Salamander
Life’s processes repeat
in patterns, neat.
Lava flows, melts and cools.
Cells fold, turn, finally solidify.
In all there are branches that spread:
a brain, a river mouth, roots of an oak.
Life quickens in cracks and jolts:
an uplift plate births new land,
a cocoon splits for a butterfly’s light,
an elephant placenta spouts a calf.
Ingredients mix and sort and mix again:
a star roils and boils like pasta in a pot,
a caterpillar’s body turns to goo,
DNA soups simmer and recombine.
It is true: from one, many
and from many, one.
Poem #286, 20 Minutes Waiting for Asphyxiation
at the Senior Center
by Emily Gibson, Oct 13, 2022
On a Tuesday afternoon, a vaccine clinic
transformed a meeting hall into a well-
oiled machine of efficiency.
A rainbow of hand weights,
sorted by heft and color, stacked
along one wall,
lopsided towers of yoga mats,
with assorted accoutrements, herded
along another wall.
Everywhere, surrounded by soft.
An EMT slides a needle into
my upper left arm, soft.
Voices indistinguishable, soft
utterances lost in cavernous space,
an odd form of public privacy.
Colors in wooden eggshell tones, soft:
pine floors, vanilla pudding walls,
honey-oak beams that frame a tapioca ceiling.
Energy of people here by choice, soft,
masks on all, without fuss,
a mom talks with a young child costumed
in early-Halloween peace officer;
a pregnant person in a belly-hugging
black dress views videos on a phone.
My timer ticks off.
No signs asphyxiation,
I slip out the door.
It hushes shut, soft.
About "20 Minutes Waiting for Asphyxiation
at the Senior Center": The prompt for this poem was one of Frank O'Hara's "Lunch Poems." You can read more about lunch poems here: https://poets.org/anthology/lunch-poems. Essentially, a lunch poem is one written after a short observation period, such as you might have over lunch. I thought my waiting period after a recent Covid booster was a perfect opportunity to observe for a lunch poem.
Poem #287, Musical Cocaine
by Emily Gibson, Oct 14, 2022
In response to Sometimes by Gerry Cinnamon
A school bell rings the lead,
Sets a cascade of notes
To trip one after the other,
Until a waterfall of words
Bounces up and over, easy,
Like the bubbles of a stream
On sound-smoothed pebbles.
Like the best lyrical poetry,
I sing along, pure joy,
unconscious of meaning:
“Down the park and pick a fight,
Popping pills all through the night.”
Wait.
I can’t relate.
This isn’t my story.
Yet it is infectious.
Infectious as a belly laugh
or case of hiccups.
Once you make ear contact,
You are hooked.
Go ahead, play it again,
you know you want to.
About "Musical Cocaine": The prompt for this poem asked us to write in response to a piece of music that generated a strong emotional and/or physical response for us. This is what I came up with, in response to Sometimes, by Gerry Cinnamon. If you have a song that would fit this poem, let me know what it is!
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